I used to think something became history when I would see a movie about it. But with 9/11 I realize I had it wrong…

The events of 9/11 have always been best understood as a movie. The official sources gave us the story complete with the villain, Osama bin Laden, the plot, “the bad guys are about to destroy our freedoms,” the heroes, the passengers of United 93 who “fought back,” a battle cry “Let’s Roll!” and even an appeal to action, “Get them over there before they get us here (again)!”

My focus is on the planes and passengers. The official story tells us that they perished in plane crashes engineered by nineteen radical hijackers acting under bin Laden’s orders. They were the supporting cast in that the official story is supported by the presence of the planes and passengers and the actions, namely phone calls, of the passengers.

The mainstream media, speaking for our leaders, persuaded us to assume that passengers lined up in front of boarding gates, got on these flights and went on to become the first victims in the “War on Terror.” They persuaded us to assume that all passengers died at the scene of the “crashes” in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania and that we should mourn their losses.

But no one forced us to make these assumptions.

Letting go of assumptions can lead to discovering facts, and even the most relevant ones at that. Instead of starting the story of the supposedly two hundred plus passengers boarding planes at Boston, Dulles and Newark airports, let’s start the story somewhere else.

Let’s try the Midwestern United States...

Editor's Note:Dean Hartwell will speak further on this topic at the Vancouver Hearings in June.